


Twice A Month

by OneOneBearForOne



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Cunnilingus, Exhibitionism, F/F, Leashes, Master/Pet, Praise Kink, Sensory Deprivation, Spanking, collaring, hair petting, roleplaying multiple personalities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2020-01-25 22:42:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18584086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneOneBearForOne/pseuds/OneOneBearForOne
Summary: An overworked and unhappy Lavinia of the tenth descends to street level to inquire about a peculiar brand of stress relief available from Judith, the Scourge Diva.





	1. Twice a Month

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to the denizens of my discord server for drawing my attention to what an absolute doormat of a sub Lavinia must be, given what her work is like, and for encouragement through the writing, editing and redrafting of this fic.

Lavinia pulled her hood tighter around her face as she approached the blaring lights and sounds of the street circus, praying that nobody in the street would recognise her. She regretted coming out here, to the cobbled streets and boisterous caravan-sites of Rakdos territory, in such a brazen expression of Azorius loyalty, but every article of clothing she owned, she had realised, was some combination of blue and cream! She had had to make do with her darkest blue cloak, and with forgoing such easily identifiable marks of office as her gauntlets and cowl.

 _Don’t falter now, Lavinia_. She steeled herself. _You’re almost there. Just another street over_.

The thud of her boots against the rain-soaked cobbles seemed to drill into her brain, expanding the time it took for her to reach the illuminated door at the end of the street to an apparent eternity. _Was this a good idea?_ She thought. Of course it wasn’t. But she was at breaking point. She knew what those rumours among the guildless said could be acquired here and she needed it. She _had_ to have it, or at least to be able to say she tried.

Lavinia’s perception of time was wobbly from how sick with anxiety she had felt, and so she was taken aback when suddenly she was at the door backstage to the temporary Rakdos arena. The devil doorman, perched on a stool beside the open doorway, looked up at her and smirked.

“Evening, _Arrester_.”

Lavinia stiffened. “Am I that obvious?”

“An Azorius down here sticks out like an unwounded thumb.” The devil cackled. “It’s how you carry yourselves, all self-important and hoity-toity. It’s not that hard havin’ reached _that_ conclusion to compare your face against the few famous Azorius I know. You’re that bird works for the guildpact, arencha?”

“How much do you think you could sell the story of the deputy to the guildpact coming down here for? That is, assuming I’m easily enough mistaken for her?” Lavinia inquired, coldly, reflexively adding the last sentence out of a compulsion to maintain deniability rather than any real sort of confidence in her ability to deceive the doorman.

The devil smacked his lips thoughtfully. “Two hundred zimos? Three if I got a whiff of what your business is in here, since you’re obviously not on duty.”

“Here’s four.” Lavinia thrust a bulging coinpurse into the devil’s spindly little hand. “With the promise of an extra hundred every subsequent time I come down here provided you can keep your mouth shut.” She made a show of drawing a simple contractual charm, hoping it would convince him she was bound to her word.

“That’ll do nicely.” The devil grinned from ear to ear, sharp teeth in serrated lines revealing themselves. “You’ll have no trouble from me, Arrester. Feel free to conduct your discreet business without fear.” He beckoned her to enter the sordid den behind him, chuckling all the time.

Lavinia gritted her teeth and strode forward, entering the crimson den of carnality’s backstage area.

She was instantly assailed by the strong metallic smell of blood, tempered with the ambient scent of smoke that hung in the air. Lavinia held her nerve. True, these environs weren’t what she was used to, but an arrester had to be adaptable, and adaptable she was. She’d come this far; it would be utter foolishness to leave without at least asking for what she was seeking.

“Oi.” A voice close to her ear called. Lavinia turned to her right and looked straight into the face of a tiny red imp, no bigger than the candlestick she was hefting aloft, fluttering in the air.

“What’s your game then, your highness?” The coarse little creature demanded.

Lavinia swallowed an insulting riposte. “I want to see Judith, the ‘Scourge Diva’. Can you direct me to her, or fetch her for me?”

“I can holler for her.” The imp replied, suspicion tempering her voice. “But why should I? Azorius like you’s bound to arrest her for sumfin’.”

“I won’t.” Lavinia attempted to reassure the creature. “Look. All the clothes I own are like this, but I’m plainly not in uniform. I’m off duty, so by law I can only make arrests if there’s a present danger of harm or death to civilians. If you call for Judith, I can wait here for her, and I have no reason to look behind that curtain at the end of the hall, so I can’t possibly see anything that would make me need to arrest anyone.”

The imp considered for a moment. “Yeah awright sounds good. I’ll take your word for it on the law, ain’t perused it myself but you Azorius love the law so much, ye can’t lie, can yer?”

“No.” Lavinia lied. “We can’t.”

The imp rotated under the weight of her candle, which flickered in Lavinia’s face, and scrunched up her face, drawing in breath to yell.

“OI, DICKHEADS! FETCH JUDITH, SHE’S GOTTER VISITOR!”

Lavinia squinted in the half light and saw the flickering of another candle a little further down the corridor rotating. A moment later an ever-quieter string of “OI DICKHEADS”, echoing down the hall could be heard.

In the ensuing silence as they both waited, Lavinia tried to find an excuse to look anywhere but at the imp, occupying herself with examining a rip in the ratty red carpet. Soon enough, however, there was a clacking of heels on the boards ahead and Lavinia looked up, not without some trepidation.

“Arrester Lavinia!” The vision before her exclaimed. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

The striking black and red motif of the Rakdos cult still turned Lavinia’s stomach a little, even after all this time. A little ball of guilt began welling up out of the depths of her stomach as she took in Judith’s fur-trimmed crimson skirt, form-fitting black leather bodice and horned crown. _Stop it._ She chided her subconscious inside her head. _It can’t all be about him. I’m allowed to interact with the Dimir and the Rakdos. She wasn’t even involved, and I_ need _this._

“Scourge...Diva.” Lavinia spoke, a little uncertain of the title. “It’s a little sensitive a matter actually, do you have a private room to talk?”

Judith blinked; the slow, seductive blink of someone who is constantly all so very pleased with herself. “But of course, Arrester.” She smiled sweetly. “There’s one just here in fact. Follow me inside and I’m sure we can get whatever matter has brought you here straightened out.” The smile was ostensibly human, but for whatever reason Lavinia caught something of the serrated grin of the door-devil in it. Suppressing her urge to gulp, she followed the lavishly dressed cultist inside the darkened room opened to her.

“Now then, Arrester.” Judith said, sitting down in a large, lavish but ill-kept throne-like chair on one side of the small, dingy study they had entered and placing her golden heels upon the desk in front of her. “Do take a seat and let me know all about what heinous crime has brought you here.”

“Nothing so terrible actually.” Lavinia sat down in- and promptly sank into- an unconvincing looking dusty armchair opposite. “I’m off-duty. This is a personal matter.”

“Really?” Judith raised her theatrically-sculpted eyebrows, the dark hair contrasting brilliantly with her porcelain skin. “Forgive me, Arrester, I was under the impression that an Azorius who decried our little parties as...” she fumbled inside her bodice and produced a worn scrap of paper obviously taken from an edition of the _Tenth District Herald_ “...’Carnivals of crime, misdemeanour and vulgarity, celebrations of routine flouting of guildpact law and hedonistic pedestals upon which to display the grotesque, the unconscionable and the reprehensible.’ might not herself be so eager to make a private visit of her own to one of our rings.”

Lavinia coughed, embarrassed at having her own interview read back to her. “Yes well... I, uh... stand by those words, but I don’t hear myself _necessarily_ pass judgement on the overall appropriateness of... um... hedonistic pedestals.”

“You do in the very next paragraph where you lament the guildpact’s forbiddance of our dissolution.” Judith replied sardonically. “But I take your point, and don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. As far as I’m concerned if we were all held to everything our jobs made us say and do, we’d be hypocrites ten times over. So, if none of us are in trouble that you’ve come to hold to us, and you’ve come to visit me specifically, to what _do_ I owe the pleasure, Arrester Lavinia?”

Lavinia leaned forward, almost conspiratorially, though it was difficult in the quagmire of an armchair she was seated in.

“It’s... the guildpact.” She whispered.

Judith stood up, swung her legs one at a time over the desk and plopped down onto it, moving her bone white face to within inches of Lavinia’s own. “Do tell.” She purred.

“He’s...” Lavinia clenched her fists in frustration. “...just never there! Ever since I learned that he’s a... plane walker or whatever they’re called, a traveller to other worlds, he’s always gallivanting off with his odd friends, disappearing for weeks at a time! What about the laws, the regulations, I say. What about this stack of things that you, Jace Beleren, the living guildpact, must pass judgement on? ‘I’ll get to it, Lavinia.’ He says.” She adopted a mocking impression of Beleren. ‘But now there’s a seven-headed wurm loose in the suburbs of faraway Ischlpischlsteen that demands my attention, could you handle my calls in the meantime?’” She slumped backwards, her head in her hands. “And then I end up doing everything, which is wrong, and illegal, since I’m Azorius and they’re guildpact-level judgements, and not what I’m trained for. But what else can I do? For the time he’s even here, he’d never get through a tenth of what the guildpact has to pass judgement on. It’s either I fake it, or it doesn’t get done and Ravnica gets more miserable.”

Judith let the silence hang in the air for a moment before she said, quite simply, “I know.”

An eye appeared from between Lavinia’s fingers. “You do?”

“I must confess I know little about planeswaddlers or whatever you said, but the tale of the absentee guildpact has reached even us mere mortals down here on the streets.” Judith said soothingly. “Everybody knows the story of the woman who really runs Ravnica. I just thought it might be important to let her tell it.”

“Oh Azor...” Lavinia buried her head in her hands again. “I can’t handle it Judith, I really can’t. I never became deputy to the guildpact to make these kinds of decisions. I have the wellbeing of the entire city resting on my shoulders, and any decision I make is illegal.”

“I’d find that quite liberating, personally.” Judith in an offhanded tone. “Free me from worrying about all that silly legality stuff to really express myself. But I can understand a true white blue like you might see it differently. Anyway, I am many things, Arrester, but a therapist is not generally one of them. Why have you elected to seek my counsel particularly, save that as Rakdos I don’t care about laws, so I won’t rat you out?”

Lavinia removed her head from her hands, her face suddenly stony with renewed purpose. She leaned back forward, making up the distance to Judith’s face again until their noses were almost touching.

“I need...” she whispered, in a strained, but determined voice. “...a _break_. And I want your help.”

“And what sort of help could I provide you?” Judith asked, dismissively. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Arrester, but I perform in ring entertainment, I don’t sell time shares for mini breaks.”

“My whole life now is just having to take responsibility, be in charge, make decisions, think-do-think-do-think-do.” Lavinia muttered through gritted teeth. “I need a break from that. Where I’m not the one taking control.”

“So appoint a second-in-command and go and stay in a hotel for a week.” Judith swung her legs back over the desk and stood up to leave. “If you’ll excuse me, Arrester, I have rehearsals to conduct.”

“Where I’m not in control... of anything.” Lavinia practically growled, her jaw clenched.

Judith stopped at the door. Slowly, her heels making dull clicks against the dry loose boards beneath her, she walked back to the desk, sat down upon one end and lounged backwards to place her face within spitting distance of Lavinia’s again.

“I’m so _terribly_ sorry, Arrester.” She said, savouring the words, her smile wide, white, and vaguely animalistic. “I _completely_ misunderstood you before. Now I see.” She ran her tongue slowly across her teeth in front of Lavinia before continuing. “You’ve heard about my little... _extracurriculars_... haven’t you?”

“I might have done.” Lavinia replied, simply.

“Do forgive me, arrester, but given the comparative... _legality_ of those particular activities, if the most powerful woman on Ravnica were to discover acts I wished kept secret, I’d have thought she’d have found out about my much more... _objectionable_ habits first. Now, of course, I understand she might well know, but she’s prepared to look past them to get what she wants.”

“Will you do it?” Lavinia sounded harried.

“For a price, dear, though not necessarily one in zimos. I think this could prove to be a very mutually beneficial arrangement for both of us, if you’re prepared to give _me_ what _I_ want.”

“And what is that?”

“Every day, Arrester, I go out in that ring and I perform my heart out. Thankfully not literally, though it may yet come to that. I sing, I dance, I tell jokes, I bleed for the audience. I commit some amount of little indiscretions that I think I will spare your sensitive Azorius ears. All for the adulation of my public and the prestige I desire amongst the cult. I certainly receive one of those, Arrester, but do you know who gets the other?”

“Who?”

“Why, Rakdos, of course. The big man himself. Never am I properly appreciated or revered by my fellow cultists, no matter the popularity of my songs, the daring complexity of my stunts, the quality of my jokes. No, all praise is directed squarely at the guildmaster, on his lofty perch in the crowd, the lazy bastard.” Judith placed a hand under Lavinia’s chin, tipping it imperceptibly upwards. “What I want, Arrester, is to be _adored_.”

“You want that, truly?” Lavinia whispered, breathlessly, staring deeply into the other woman’s wild, painted eyes. “Then command it of me, and it shall be done.”

With a snap, Judith was standing up, and the mood was broken. “Perhaps I will, but first thing’s first, Arrester, let’s get some ground rules hammered out. How frequently can you come and see me?”

“Every other Raksday.” Lavinia replied, straightening herself up, a little embarrassed. “I can neither afford the bribe I’m paying your doorman, nor the potential for being followed, to come any more frequently. Beside that I have work to do.”

“So sparsely, darling.” Judith pouted as she stepped over to a cabinet in the corner of the dingy room and began rifling through it. “I shall look forward to our meetings with some excitement. Good plan with paying off Cackler though, I don’t control who he talks to. Now then, our relationship stays in the space we meet in on these Raksdays. In public we know each other only by reputation; you are free to talk as much rot about the Rakdos cult to the press as you please, and we will continue our...more ‘legally challenged’ pursuits, and no further word said about it. Meeting in public it will be as if we have not met before at all. Consequently, it would probably be best that I leave no marks on you, either from impact or incision, where they can be seen, so I’ll stick to your torso and avoid extremities if there’s any of that to be done. Speaking of, do you wish to be incised at all? I know not everybody is the biggest fan of blood. No?" - here she glanced at Lavinia, who was shaking her head in a small motion and grimacing - "Very well then, I’ll restrict myself to blunt instruments, and even then of course, only if you’re bad. Theatre aside, it is important that this is enjoyable for you, so if at any point you feel overwhelmed or uncatered to, or you want to stop for any reason, you can say ‘Niv Mizzet’ and I’ll cut and break character and see you right. Try it now." She waited a moment, listening as the Azorius woman obliged.

"There, you see? That’s your safe word if ever I go too far. Finally, the most difficult decision-“ she pulled something out of the cabinet, and when she turned around Lavinia could see she was carrying a pair of large dog collars, each beset with a row of spikes and attached to a folded leash. “-red or blue?”

Lavinia stared at the leashes for a moment before shaking her head. “Are we doing this or not? My opinion doesn’t matter.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t.” Judith replaced the red leash in the cabinet, her voice effortlessly changing as she assumed her character. “I think blue would be best. Azorius blue, to remind me of the provenance of my new possession once she has lost all other such indicia. Speaking of which; take off your clothes.”

“Pardon, Judith?”

“You will address me as ‘My diva’, and I think I was perfectly clear the first time. _Remove thy vestments_.”

Lavinia found herself breathless. _It’s happening,_ she thought, struggling to keep her composure. She kicked off her boots and scrambled clumsily to remove her cloak, then her gloves. Both she tossed to the floor before she went to work removing her tunic and trousers, then finally began unfastening the one-piece she wore beneath out of the habits of a woman who wore her work uniform too much. Soon, a heaped, crumpled pile of blue cloth sat on the floor, and beside it knelt Lavinia, utterly nude, her dark brown pixie cut no longer hidden by hoods and cowls. Judith walked over to her, gestured for her to stand, and undid the buckle on the bright blue collar. It was the work of a moment to see it securely fastened around Lavinia’s neck.

“Until this comes off, I own you.” Judith whispered into Lavinia’s ear, her body close and warm. “You will follow my instructions, you will answer my questions, and I may do as I please with you. Are you prepared to begin?”

“Yes, my diva.” Lavinia breathed, barely able to contain her excitement.

The grand dame walked slowly around Lavinia, examining her from every angle. Lavinia couldn’t help but gasp as a pair of porcelain hands cupped her breasts. The dame nodded approvingly, then pressed gently on her scalp to force her to the floor again. A tug at Lavinia’s neck as Judith walked away from her toward the ratty throne made it clear what was expected of her. Crawling on her hands and knees, she followed the train of Judith’s dress to the chair and then sat hunched up beside the armrest.

In the resulting silence Lavinia wondered if, despite the thrill she had just been subjected to, this had truly been a good decision. Odd as this was, she supposed, she wasn’t uncomfortable. Despite her nakedness she felt pretty warm in this room. The whole of the Rakdos backstage area had been pretty toasty, actually. _Might be a fire hazard_ , she thought. _I should report-_ then she stopped. No, that wasn’t what this was all about. She wasn’t here to be a guildpact deputy, or an Azorius arrester, or her usual stern legalistic self. She was here to submit. _Somebody else makes all the decisions,_ she thought, almost euphorically. _My diva will decide everything, I worry about nothing but pleasing her. I am finally, for a few hours, free. Free to stop, free to think of nothing of importance, nothing of weight. Just warm and cared for, subjugated by my own will for my own sanity. I asked for this, I am determined to enjoy it._

There was a tickling on Lavinia’s scalp. She blinked owlishly for a moment in confusion, before daring to turn a little to look at Judith. The glamorous Rakdos cultist was lounging in the chair, the end of the leash in her lap held loosely by her right hand, and her left... Lavinia realised that Judith was stroking her hair!

“Thaaat’s it.” The dame’s voice was soft and soothing, like a Boros handler with a spooked mastiff. “Just let all those little thoughts and worries driiiift away. Like dust. Not important at all. Empty out your cute little head, hm? A moment ago you were the most powerful woman in Ravnica. Now what are you?”

Lavinia was silent, confused, finally she chanced a pleading look at Judith’s face.

“Oh poor little Vinny, you’re still so new to this, aren’t you?” Judith crooned. “Let me help you out, just this once; you’re alive, and you’re my property, and I have you on a leash. All that makes you...?”

“Your pet.” Lavinia said in a small voice, barely able to speak.

“Pardon?” Judith theatrically put her left hand to her ear.

“Your pet, my diva!” Lavinia repeated, louder and more confidently. It felt silly, but she wanted the petting hand back, it had felt oddly comforting.

“Very good!” Judith exclaimed in mock praise, though oddly enough it felt pretty real to Lavinia. “And back then you had all sorts of horrid nasty responsibilities; making our legal system go round, making decisions that affect people’s lives every day, picking up after the lazy ungrateful living guildpact. Not very nice at all. But that’s all gone now, you needn’t worry about it anymore. Instead you only have one job now, my pet. Do you know what it is?

Lavinia did know, and she was catching on fast how this game worked. “To adore you, my diva.”

“Well done!” Judith cooed. “Now you understand. Oh it’s so good to see that even the mightiest Azorius in the world can be made to recognise her place, where she truly belongs. Where is that, by the way, my pet?” She asked, sweetly.

Lavinia considered, not wanting to give the wrong answer. She’d been shown no punishment as of yet, save perhaps slightly harsh words, but she craved her crimson-clad mistress’ praise, it was addictive. More recognition than she’d received in a year of serving the guildpact, just for submitting to the grand dame and recognising it. What a strange world.

“At...your...feet...my diva?” She answered cautiously.

“Oh _good girl_!” Judith’s hand returned to Lavinia’s head, her nails scratching behind the naked Arrester’s ears. “That was a bit of a hard one, I must admit, I thought you might need some help, but you’re a good little pet, and a smart one too! I think it might have been emptying out that brain of yours, it’s left so much room for the things that _really_ matter.”

Lavinia felt her eyes closing as she submitted to the pleasurable sensation of being petted. Judith was right. This was where she belonged, what she was meant for. Not a stressful life of resolving guildpact problems and waiting for irresponsible teenage laws made manifest to grace her with their presence, but the simple existence of a pampered housepet, where all the decisions that could possibly distress her were taken by her owner and she needn’t have a care in the world but for adoration in return.

Speaking of which, she realised it was high time she showed some. Grasping for an adoring act, she leaned in very close to the arm of the chair, hoping this would be interpreted as the show of loving intimacy it was meant as. She felt it likely, as she saw Judith glance down and smile warmly, and felt her diva’s hand move to the nape of her neck, where her thumb began massaging gently. They sat there for a few minutes in silence, just enjoying the moment.

“I think it’s time to make proper use of my new toy.” Judith removed her hand and stood up, leaving Lavinia’s leash on the armrest. Lavinia waited and watched patiently as Judith removed her fur-trimmed skirt and leather bodice, gently tossing both onto the seat Lavinia had previously occupied. She sat back down, picked up the leash and gave a gentle tug. “Come on, my pet, up here.”

Lavinia scrambled onto all fours and waddled around the side of the chair, hauling herself up by her hands to look over the seat at Judith.

The scourge diva reposed regally in the chair. She still wore her horned crown, the harlequin sleeve on her left arm and her golden heels, but she had stripped down completely otherwise. She looked into Lavinia’s eyes, raised her eyebrows enticingly, and pointed downwards. Lavinia’s gaze followed her direction to the seat of the chair...and to Judith’s cunt.

Lavinia looked up at Judith, her eyes like saucers.

“I... I’ve never...” She stuttered.

“Never?” Judith purred incredulously. “Not even received?”

Lavinia shook her head.

“We’ll have to fix that some time.” Judith muttered. “Well, make a start, I’ll account for your inexperience and let you know if you’re screwing up.”

Lavinia nervously pushed her face forward, burying it, with some uncertainty, in Judith’s nethers. She made some exploratory motions with her tongue, then began licking faster, noting what prompted positive sounds from above her head. She slowly became more confident as her actions elicited louder and louder moans from her owner, though indeed, it took a long time, and Lavinia's knees and collarbones were beginning to hurt from staying in one position so long. Eventually, finally, and with a little squeal that to the Azorius felt like the greatest praise of all, Judith put her hand on Lavinia’s temple and gently pushed her head away. Slumped in the chair, panting, Judith began once again gently stroking Lavinia’s hair. Lavinia let her neck go slack, placing her chin down on the seat of the chair, looking up at her diva lovingly. Thus they stayed, for many minutes, before the Rakdos dame finally spoke.

“Time’s up, my pet.” Judith said, gently.

“Hm?” Lavinia looked up, confused.

“I have a rehearsal to get to, I’m afraid. And so you must return to the world of the civilised. It will be difficult to adjust, I know, now that I have shown you what you really are, but I’m sure you can pretend to be a person well enough, before you know it we’ll be able to play again and then I can put you back where you belong. Come at seven next time, so we have more time to try things.” Judith leaned in close and kissed Lavinia’s forehead. At the same time Lavinia felt the collar slacken around her neck, and then it was pulled off down her front.

“Put your clothes back on.” Judith instructed. “And you know-“ she continued, blithely. “If there’s anything you’d like to try you can bring it to our next little meeting, but you have to show it to me before we start- once your clothes are off, only the safe word can make anything you think matter again until we’re finished. Now ta-ta poppet, run along now.”

Lavinia was pretty sure her singlet was on back to front as she left by the stage door, but there was nothing to be done about it now, and besides, she barely cared. What an absolute thrill! There was no doubt about it- she had found her hobby for the foreseeable future, and she’d be seeing-and worshipping- a lot more of the grand dame.

As she made to disappear into the spattering rain a voice called out behind her.

“Enjoy yerself, luv?”

Lavinia turned and saw the pointed face of the devil doorman.

“Very much, thank you.” She stated, bluntly but with a smile on her face. “Enjoy the gold?”

“That I do, and I look forward to future instalments.” Cackler said greedily.

“And you’ll have them." Colour rushed to Lavinia's cheeks as she thought of making future visits to the grand dame. “I’ll be coming back soon.” And with that she turned, raised her hood and disappeared into the rain.

“’course you will.” Cackler muttered avariciously to himself.

“They always do.”


	2. The Two Lavinias

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a few months visiting Judith every fortnight, Lavinia slips up, and falls back into her workaholic ways. What will she do when the displeased dame visits her at work? And who are the two Lavinias?

It had been an exhausting day. Lavinia wondered if perhaps she could feel a migraine coming on. In and out of meetings with ranking members of the Azorius- and constantly making excuses for the guildpact- she had been left barely any time to catch up on her paperwork, and so had taken the opportunity to work longer into the night than she usually did to make up for lost time.

It was from the depths of dreary arrester reports that Lavinia was roused by an impatient knock on her door. She looked up in surprise- it wasn’t usual for anybody in the offices of the guildpact to receive visitors past nine. _At least_ , she thought with some annoyance, _not the kind that use the door to enter_.

“Come in!” She called cautiously. The door creaked open and Lavinia’s heart leapt to her throat as a familiar crimson figure stepped purposefully through. Judith, grand dame of the Rakdos cult, wearing her familiar black leather bodice and frilled red skirt but topped with a platter-like hat bearing red and black carnations that Lavinia had never seen before; let the door slam behind her and strode down the long, well-lit and generously windowed room toward Lavinia’s desk. She stopped in front of the chair for guests, and hitching up her skirt, sat down upon it curtly.

As an accomplished arrester, Lavinia wasn’t usually one for nerves, but in the presence of the grand dame, sitting so coolly and silently before her, the Azorius woman could feel herself sweating. _Which context is this? Is it a professional visit? It’s hardly public in here, but we aren’t in the Rakdos backrooms. Do I act like I don’t know her?_ She decided to take the safer tack.

“Miss...um... Judith? Is it? Of the Rakdos. How can I help you?”

“You can start...” Judith enunciated coldly. “By reminding me what day it is today.”

Lavinia’s blood turned to ice as a dawning realisation struck her, but as the panic set in she couldn’t help reflexively feigning ignorance as long as she could to prolong the silence before the inevitable revelation. “It is... Raksday, I believe.” She looked at the little fliptop desk calendar that the guildpact’s friend Miss Revane had bought for her in the market. “Yes. Raksday. The...uh... the twenty-fourth.”

“I thought so.” Judith continued. “Is there not an arrangement between our offices that a certain... _emissary_ will visit mine from yours, at 7 o’clock sharp every second Raksday, and did she not most recently visit exactly a fortnight ago?”

“I...” Lavinia found herself struggling to meet Judith’s gaze. She had fearlessly rounded up guildless gangs and stood firm against violent gruul beasts, but her mistress radiated an aura that she feared directly acknowledging. “Yes that’s correct. I do apologise, my... Dame Judith. I must have... _she_ must have been sidetracked by her work. We’ve all been so terribly busy today it’s easy to lose track of the date and time, you know, lots of important _guildpact_ things to do.” She attempted a forced grin, which was not particularly convincing. Lavinia struggled to openly express her sense of humour in times she _wasn’t_ under stress like this.

“That’s very unfortunate.” Judith said, her words like ice now. “Might I show you something of interest at the window, deputy?” She gestured to the large window behind Lavinia’s seat, and stood up from her chair.

“I... suppose...so?” Lavinia’s heart was pounding. She had never seen the scourge diva look and sound this _disappointed_. Standing up from her own chair, she extended an arm to walk Judith around her desk, and courteously led her to the large bay window.

Judith positioned herself so she was standing directly behind Lavinia’s shoulder, and placed a hand upon it. Lavinia heard a rustling as the dame removed her hat, and then jumped slightly as she heard the other woman’s voice very close to her ear.

“You are a naughty girl, and I am going to get rough with you.” Judith whispered softly into Lavinia’s ear. “The safeword still works, as always, I would never take that away from you, darling. But if you use it, we’re going to have this conversation formally, like chaste adults, and I rather suspect you’d find that much less exciting. Do you understand?”

Lavinia shivered, enraptured by the presence of her mistress so close to her sensitive skin. _Oh Azor_ , she thought. _It really has been two weeks, hasn’t it?_

“Yes.” She breathed. It was almost so quiet she doubted Judith had heard, but she felt the hand on her shoulder relax.

“Good.” Judith said, much more loudly, then she pointed. “You see down there? There, between the two disused Orzhov chapels. There’s an underground club there where tonight they’re putting on a concert I’d quite like to have gone to, had I known my guest was not to be turning up.”

“Who’s playing?” Lavinia gulped, desperate to break the tension.

“King Xicor And The War Boar, but that’s not the point. The point is, I was held in suspense and unable to commit, but also, I have nowhere to be since the rest of the troupe _have_ gone. No rehearsals tonight for old Judith, I can stay up as late as I like.”

“How lovely for you.” Lavinia turned and gestured at the chair in front of her desk, but Judith walked past it this time and planted herself on the coarse cream waiting settee a little way away, bathed in the fading evening light. Lavinia gave a little shrug, pulled out her own chair from her desk and swung it over so that she could sit a little distance away, facing Judith.

“Once again, I’m so very sorry our appointment wasn’t kept, Judith.” She said, managing to regrasp the professional tone of a high-ranking Azorius. “I really must just have lost track of time and forgotten all about it.”

“May I speak to my pet, Lavinia, please?” Judith had replaced her hat upon her head without Lavinia noticing somehow.

Lavinia frowned, confused. “Um... I am Lavinia; Dame Judith, I’m not sure I follow you?”

“You are the Lavinia that wears clothes.” Judith said, somewhat exasperatedly. “The Lavinia who is deputy to the guildpact. The Lavinia who works too hard, and the Lavinia with whom I am not personally greatly acquainted. I wish to speak to the Lavinia that wears the collars I put on her, the Lavinia with whom I am so intimately acquainted that she has tasted my pussy more than once, the Lavinia who exists to adore me and does not trouble herself with trifles like ‘paperwork’ and ‘meetings’. I know that she is somewhere inside you, will you allow me to speak to her?”

Lavinia blinked. She was so confused. _There aren’t two Lavinias, there is but the one of me!_ she thought indignantly. She could no more delegate this conversation to the Lavinia who ate Judith’s pussy as the Lavinia who ate breakfast this morning. What did Judith mean by this?

As Lavinia watched, Judith’s large, shaded hat raised a little with her head, and Judith caught sight of the scourge diva’s eyes. As always beautifully painted, they seemed to pop right out of her face, and their stare brought new understanding to Lavinia. _Play along_ , they seemed to say. _Play your role and have some fun_.

Lavinia decided to take the initiative and try something adventurous. That was, after all, what she used to do it all the time as an arrester, how was a long-shot gambit once in a while in this sort of setting any different?

“I’ll see if she’s in.” Lavinia said, trying her best to give off a sultry air before closing her eyes for a moment. With her eyelids closed, she tried as hard as she could to muster the kind of headspace she entered during her normal sessions with Judith, when she wore nothing but a dog collar and thought of nothing but the resplendent scarlet vision before her.

Unsure, she felt as if maybe she had found something. She opened her eyes.

“My... my diva?” She asked, in a pained stage whisper.

Judith’s face softened. “My pet. Lavinia. My most beautiful and treasured possession.”

“I’m... I’m sorry I didn’t come and see you, my diva.” Lavinia said, regretfully. “I just got so...”

“Sssshhhh... my pet, it’s all right. I know it’s not your fault. I know _she_ kept you from coming.” Judith crooned, the sudden spitting of the word _she_ making Lavinia jump a little.

“Who, my diva?”

“The fake Lavinia, my pet. The Lavinia who wears clothes and walks on two legs and traps you in this office under mountains of boring paper. The greedy, selfish, work-obsessed Lavinia you are so tragically bound to and must occasionally transform into. I know that she kept you from coming, even though you would so have loved to see me, isn’t that right?”

Lavinia bit her tongue for a moment, briefly stunned by the ludicrous thing that was implicitly being asked of her. Could she be made to hate herself? As a different person? A different persona, even? Was that what she and the Lavinia she had been mere seconds before already were? She certainly felt different. Who would believe that the stern-faced, no-nonsense Azorius arrester who aided the living guildpact and the airheaded, bubbly, adoring human housepet who delighted in burying her face in the grand dame’s nethers were one and the same? Now that she thought of it, Lavinia wasn’t even sure _she_ believed it. Maybe she could play this way, at least for a little.

 _Here goes nothing,_ she thought. “Yes, my diva.” She played up the theatrics with a little sniffle. “I so desperately wanted to come and play with you, and usually she lets me, but she just had so much work to do that she wouldn’t _listen_. I kept asking to go and she just _ignored_ me, and now we haven’t any time left and it’s _all her fault_!”

“Oh, my poor poor little Vinny.” Judith’s voice was like honey. “Don’t you worry yourself at all. You’re right, it’s late, but we’ll play soon, I’ll make sure of it.”

“I love you, my diva.”

“I know sweetheart. Now can you do something for me?”

Lavinia stared into Judith’s eyes and nodded.”

“I need you to stand up, come over here, yes _there you go_. Now, take off your breeches. No, no, just the breeches, and any underwear underneath them, _that’s it_. Now, come and lie down on your front across my knees like this. No, not too far forward, just about here with your stomach on my knees, yes well done. You’ve been a star, my pet. Now then, I promise we’ll see each other sooner than a fortnight from now, but right at the moment I need to speak to the other Lavinia, the nasty one. Can you bring her back?”

“Yes, my diva.” Lavinia bubbled. “Let me fetch her.” She let her eyes roll back into her head for a moment, reasoning that probably looked like as dramatic a transition to her other self as might be expected. She let her face resume its natural stony expression and pursed her lips.

“Dame Judith.” She said, tersely, trying not to let a little smile work into her voice as she played her complicated part. “I must say this is most irregular. I apologise for the compromising and inappropriate position you find me in, though I must say I suspect your hand in its design.” She made a token effort to get up off the settee but played her role by yielding immediately when Judith placed a firm hand on her shoulders.

“There you would be right.” Judith said, in a thrillingly nasty voice that Lavinia had not heard her use before. “I have had my pet pose you like this, that you may more easily be punished for your cruelty and selfishness.”

“Punished? Dame Judith, might I remind you that I am a highly respected Azorius arrester, and the personal aide to the guildpact himself, I hardly think- AH!” Lavinia’s eyes bulged as Judith’s hand, which had been silently raising behind her, delivered a short, sharp, powerful smack to her exposed bottom.

“Surely you are these things.” Judith sneered, raising her hand again. “And yet what you also are is a greedy, selfish, thoughtless work-obsessed little pig. And I feel myself perfectly qualified to deliver unto you an appropriate punishment for such.” She brought the hand down again for another sharp smack.

“Please, Dame Judith, this is most- ah! AH!” Lavinia cried out as she was soundly spanked. Even in this most tender of places, her years of training and experience with actual assault ensured it truly didn’t hurt all that much physically, but a tinge of humiliation niggled at Lavinia’s mind as the dame brought her hand down again.

“No law-princess of the Azorius is so high and mighty that she is beyond being given a good smack for her beastly behaviour!” Judith growled. “Especially not one as cruel and heartless as you, Lavinia of the Tenth. You would not indulge my pet, even though you know she has needs! You preferred to squash them away, didn’t you? Pretend that you are the real Lavinia, that your boring, mundane duties are more important than the needs that live in her very flesh, that you have no obligations to me, so you can deny my pet as you please! Well, you were wrong, false Lavinia! There will never be a Lavinia so dignified I cannot punish her. And punishment is what you deserve , you greedy, selfish, thoughtless cow!”

Lavinia could feel her mind begin to fog up as she submitted to the torrent of stinging sensations the scourge diva was unleashing upon her tender rear end. It was harder to think, and she felt humiliated and ashamed. Judith’s words stung almost as much as her smacks, though Lavinia could hear them becoming more distant as her brain fuzzed up and she stared past the end of the couch at the floor-length glass window beyond at her own sorry reflection in the pane, backed by the dimness of dusk.

A particularly brutal smack caused tears to appear in Lavinia’s eyes. In that moment, through the bleary view in front of her, she thought she could almost imagine her reflection changing. Suddenly, it was as if the reflected Lavinia was not fully clothed, laid on a sofa and grimacing from being spanked hard on the bottom, but instead nude, huddled, hugging her knees, a bright red collar around her neck with a slack leash attached to it trailing onto the floor, looking reproachfully with an expression of hurt and anguish at betrayal back at her. The window Lavinia blinked and her counterpart of flesh saw that her eyes were red and teary. It was then that she lost all control over her own tears as a wave of regret, shame and humiliation at this personal failure to her naked, helpless little alter-ego welled up within her.

“What are you, Lavinia of the Tenth?” Judith hissed, bringing her hand down again on Lavinia’s raw behind.

“Greedy.” Lavinia sniffled.

“And?” Another smack.

“Selfish.” Lavinia sobbed.

“And what else?” Judith raised her hand higher than she ever had.

“THOUGHTLESS!” Lavinia wailed, lurching from the crack that the diva’s open palm made across her sore red bottom.

“Good.” Judith said with a satisfied finality. “I’m glad we’ve established that. Now then, worm, sit up.”

Lavinia did as she was told, and reflexively moved to wipe the tears streaming down her face before a gloved hand stopped her.

“No.” Said the diva, quietly but firmly. Lavinia put her sleeve down.

“As my pet didn’t get to play tonight, I expect two things from you in recompense.” Judith said, authoritatively. “First of all, you will send her next week. At five, on that day, so we can make up for lost time. Then we will move her appointment to every other week from there, at the usual time. You have a week to make it happen, I expect no whining about it.”

Lavinia nodded, her body a sorry sight given all four of her cheeks were exposed, red and swollen at this point.

“Second of all.” The dame reached down and began to remove her skirt. “My pet had a job to do tonight, and because you gluttonously decided to eat up her personal playtime with your... paperwork nonsense, she wasn’t able to come and see me to do it. So...” She stood up, tossing her skirt onto the empty end of the settee, and walked over to Lavinia’s desk. “You are going to do it for her, instead.”

“I... I am?” Lavinia sniffed, dazed.

“Yes.” Judith hopped up onto the end of Lavinia’s desk and spread her legs, exposing her cunt. She beckoned to Lavinia. “Now.”

As if in a trance, perhaps as if the Pet inside her had taken control of her legs, Lavinia stood up and waddled over to kneel at the end of the desk, nursing her sore posterior. She looked up at Judith, seeing only cruelty on the diva’s face. Perhaps the mock cruelty of the stage, but what did that matter? She was playing as much a part as anyone here, and the diva’s fake cruelty was more than real enough to the fake Lavinia she now knew she was. She leaned forward and began to explore the folds in front of her with her tongue, as she had at this point done many times.

 _No_. Said a voice in her head. _Judith’s pet has done this many times. You never have._

 _Please._ She pleaded back to the voice. _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, please tell the Pet I love her, I love being her. I got distracted and I feel terrible about it, I’ll never do it again. She has needs, and I neglected them, and she just looked so alone it tore me apart. Please, may I have her guidance here? May I be a whole Lavinia again? I don’t want to disappoint Judith any more, I can’t stand it. **Please**_.

There was for a moment only the sound of Lavinia’s lapping and Judith’s quiet moans.

 _You are forgiven_. The voice said simply, and Lavinia’s mind cleared, suddenly she could think properly and her accumulated skill at cunnilingus returned to her. It was all over in a few minutes. She took some small amount of pride in noticing that this was probably a personal best time for bringing the dame to orgasm.

“Very good, arrester.” Judith said, trying to maintain her commanding presence through gasps. “But I think your punishment must yet be more severe.”

Lavinia stared upwards in almost desperation. _Yet more?_

“I think...” Judith savoured the words devilishly. “I shall have you walk home... with your face as it is. The other Lavinia will keep you straight. You may put your trousers back on, but you may not clean your face until you are back home.”

It was all too much for Lavinia. “NIV-MIZZET!” She shrieked, and before she could even blink, the domineering, towering, cunt-baring Judith was gone, and there was only a bodice-clad woman her own height, squatting down by her and helping her gently to her feet. As Lavinia stood up she was enveloped in a gentle embrace, and she found she couldn’t stop tears welling in her eyes.

“There there.” Judith’s voice was out of role- it was kind, and warm, like a toned-down, less cartoonish version of the voice she praised the Pet in. “I’m sorry, did I go too far?”

“A little bit.” Lavinia sniffled. “I think I liked it up until the bit about going outside like this, but it was all a bit overwhelming, I have to be honest.”

“All right.” Judith massaged Lavinia’s back. “Why don’t we put exhibitionism down as a hard no for you, and I’ll not mention it again, is that what you’d like?”

Lavinia nodded, her lip still wobbling, and Judith released her.

“You can be whichever Lavinia you like now.” She said, kindly. “ Or all of them at once. And would you like something to clean your face up? I think I have a handkerchief somewhere here, a favour from a fan. Yes, here it is.” She handed a grateful Lavinia a dry red square of embroidered cloth, which the latter used to remove the worst of the multitude of accumulated fluids on her face. The two wandered over to the settee, and each took a moment to re-don her lower half.

“I’d offer you some tea, or something.” Judith said, in a soft voice. “But I’m afraid I remain technically a guest in your office, I fear it may not be to be found. Certainly not where I could reach it.”

“That’s all right.” Lavinia replied. “I’ll have some when I get home. Thank you for stopping.”

“But of course, Lavinia darling!” Judith sounded shocked. “It’s _very_ important to me that you know that any time you say that word I will stop. You can say it for any reason, too. Obviously if things get too real but also if you just want a break, that’s fine as well. I will always stop when I know you want me to; we just tend to muddy the waters around the traditional avenues to communicate that. Hence the safeword.”

Lavinia attempted to hand back the handkerchief, but Judith waved her away. “Keep it.” She said. “I get one about every other show, and from the look of the gentleman who gave it to me I guarantee he’d have no objections to what it was used for.” She pursed her lips.

“I _am_ sorry.” Lavinia’s voice was returning to normal. “I really did forget. It’s just been so hectic without the guildpact here.”

“I know, dear.” Judith put a loving hand on Lavinia’s shoulder. “But that was why you started coming in the first place, remember? To make sure you had an escape from all that. We don’t want you falling back into bad habits.”

“I think I can arrange for next week.” Lavinia said. “But the earliest I can do is six, honestly. I hope that’s all right.”

“That’s absolutely fine, gorgeous. I’ll see you then.” Judith leaned in and kissed her cheek, which made Lavinia flush bright red, her face prickling as if it were her aching bottom. _What an odd thing to be embarrassed by, given all we’ve done._ Lavinia thought. But the diva’s lips had been soft, and gentle, and her beautiful, dangerous face right up near Lavinia’s own.

“Actually...” Lavinia fumbled the sentence around her mouth like a stringy bit of meat.

“Yes?” Judith looked at her expectantly.

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to start coming every week.” Lavinia said, with a sudden surge of the professional confidence she was usually so easily able to summon in her working life. “I think she... I think _I_ really need it. Just at seven normally though.”

“Oh darling that’s wonderful news!” Judith smiled. “I would absolutely love to see more of you. I’ll make sure my schedule is clear. And I’ll tell you what don’t worry about paying Cackler more, he’s due a raise anyway so I’ll pull some strings with the big man. And...” she trailed off, in thought.

Lavinia looked at her expectantly.

“I won’t turn up here anymore.” Judith said, decisively. “It was fun just this once to come and hunt you down, show some punishment for ignoring me, but ultimately I think it was actually me being a little selfish.” She looked at Lavinia apologetically. “I missed you. I really enjoy our little sessions together and... well, I’m not really getting the adoration elsewhere much. Work hasn’t been great recently, I’m sure you can relate.”

“Well enough.” Lavinia said. “Though I haven’t tried getting Beleren’s attention with cabaret or daring feats of acrobatics yet.”

Judith laughed. “Perhaps that’s where you’re going wrong. Maybe I should bore the cult with readings of legal reports.”

“Perhaps!” Lavinia giggled. “Would you like some? I have so many.”

“Another time, maybe. Anyway, I’ll leave you to your work, arrester, though don’t overtire yourself.” Judith stood up, blew a kiss and began to walk back toward the door.

“Judith, wait!” Lavinia called after her.

The dame turned at the door and looked at her expectantly.

“I... um...” Lavinia sucked her teeth. “If I can request now... I did like being spanked... a little. I’d like to try some more spanking next week if there can be less yelling? I don’t know if that needs to be part of it...”

“Not at all poppet.” Judith assured her. “We can work out the details at the start of the session next week. You have a very nice bum and I’m absolutely up for making it nice and red with a little less cruelty if you’d like. Now ta-ta, see you next Raksday!”

The door shut behind her with a clunk. Lavinia folded up the handkerchief and stuffed it into one of her tunic’s cunningly secreted waist pockets. Then she looked across from the settee at the pile of reports on her desk, in disarray from Judith parking herself on the edge, and with some of the (thankfully already processed) ones damper than they had been, with fluids of dubious origin.

She shook her head, walked over and grabbed her satchel, fishing her keys out to hold in her hand. Pausing only to tip the worst of the ruined reports into the waste paper basket, she turned to leave, and in another moment the door shut again, this time with a click; leaving the room silent and dark for the evening.


	3. Zero Times A Month

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavinia and Judith are taking their little game to a lofty new height as the living guildpact's absence drags on. But what will happen when Judith crosses a line that her submissive can't abide? What is it that has upset Lavinia so much that she does something she doesn't mean? And who is waiting for her back home in her apartment? Read on, and discover...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I said three chapters. But... again, the last chapter is contingent on an official story release from WotC that STILL hasn't happened, and I got bored waiting. So here's the first of two intermediate chapters about Lavinia and Judith experiencing trouble in paradise.

“Nobody will recognise you.” Judith’s voice was sharp, but reassuring. “The cowl hides your hair and changes the shape of your face, and clad as you are in red and black nobody would think to associate you with the Azorius.” Her words were punctuated by the sound of her heels clacking on the paving slabs beneath their feet.

“If you’re certain.” Lavinia said, doubtfully.

“Say the word, My Pet,” Judith’s voice came again. “And we won’t go. It’s important to me that you’re comfortable with this, we talked at length about it. I know that it’s an absolute hard limit for you for people to know who you are. That’s a perfectly acceptable and sensible limit and I am absolutely taking it seriously, so I need your faith and trust that I have taken the utmost care to ensure that you are unrecognisable dressed like this. I will also not use your name in there, you will be completely anonymous. But if it’s still too much, we can turn around and go back to the ring and you can take it all off again and we’ll have a bit of a normal session.”

Lavinia’s heart was pounding. She’d never submitted to her diva this much; it was thrilling, but nevertheless she was frightened. Excited? Nervous? They all ran together really, into the knot in her stomach. The hood obscured her eyes; she was utterly dependent on Judith for direction, and she was wobbling in the shoes she’d been given. Underneath her cloak she was stark naked, save for a black leather harness from Judith’s closet and the crimson dog collar that was the lesser used of the two her mistress liked to strap around her neck. Judith had given her a pair of heels to wear as well- they were short, just an inch, but Lavinia’s career had ill-prepared her for walking elevated nonetheless and she would occasionally trip over her own feet, unable as she was to see the floor. Each time, she felt Judith’s firm hands on her back and abdomen, helping her straighten up again. Her diva had never failed to support her, she had earned her trust, surely.

“I trust you.” She said, simply. “And I wanted this. But I’m still a little anxious, I must admit.”

“Naturally.” Judith’s voice came again. “As always, we can stop any time. You know how.”

“I do.”

“Well now, we’re here, finally. Take my hand, there’s a step.” Lavinia fumbled about in the direction of Judith’s voice until she felt her mistress’ soft fingers around hers. With a little awkwardness navigating the step, the two women were able to step into the warm, bustling environs of what Lavinia had been told was a specialised dinner club.

“Dame Judith.” Lavinia heard an unfamiliar voice to her left as she felt Judith take the cloak off her shoulders. It was a simpering, haughty tone with an oddly familiar echo to it. “So nice to see you again. And who might your companion be?”

“Never you mind, Zavaris.” Judith replied. “She’s my pet, and my business. You shan’t address her, if you know what’s good for your tip.”

“Of course, Madam.” The other voice seemed alert at that last word. “Please, allow me to show you to your booth.”

Lavinia felt Judith’s hand in hers again, tugging her forward. Knowing she would be led somewhere she would have to sit down, she decided to allow her diva simply to ply her like clay, gently allowing herself to be pushed and prodded into the right shapes and motions. Soon enough, indeed, she was seated in a tall, plush bench chair with a tall back she could feel extend beyond her head. Feeling in front of her, she found a varnished wooden table, and Judith’s voice eminated from beside her ear.

“Just let me take your hands here, My Pet.” She whispered. “Can’t have you waving these about.” She guided Lavinia’s hands to a pair of cold metal rings on the underside of the table. With a heavy clunk, Lavinia felt these shackles tighten around her wrists, pinning her arms in place.

“You are anonymous here.” Judith’s voice emanated from space around a foot and a half in front of Lavinia’s face. “But the booth is open. Everybody here can see you. They do not know who you are, but they know what is happening to you.”

Lavinia shivered with pleasure. It was the perfect cocktail of danger and security. Since she had freaked and shouted the safeword during the dame’s surprise visit to her office, Judith had, true to her word, not mentioned the subject of exhibitionism again. But privately, Lavinia had found herself fascinated by the idea, and after she brought it up at the beginning of a session some two weeks later, the two of them had worked together to plot out exactly where Lavinia’s boundaries lay. It turned out Lavinia was very open to involving tacitly consenting observers in their acts on occasion, provided that aspects of her real life beyond her play with Judith were not risked. So the condition was anonymity- Lavinia loved the idea of people seeing the filthy things that happened to her happening to “some woman”- she even loved the idea of those people witnessing them while unaware that they were occurring to the deputy to the guildpact. What terrified her beyond belief- in a distinctly non-sexy way- was the idea of anybody ever finding out what Lavinia of the Tenth did in her spare time.

Such it was that the dame had formulated this idea, this… ornate outfit for Lavinia to wear, that obscured her upper facial features, changed her profile and avoided any scent of the colour schemes she wore in public outside Raksday nights. Of course, it was hardly fair (or legal, and Lavinia had stressed the point) to inflict the spectacle of their sessions together upon an unsuspecting public, so Judith had formulated a compromise; coming to this club.

“ _It’s an Orzhov-owned establishment on the books._ ” She had explained, to a trepidatious Lavinia. “ _But they just love the money a clientbase that concerned with discretion brings. The customers are ninety nine percent Rakdos or guildless._ ”

“ _You’re sure?_ ” Lavinia had fretted.

“ _Well,_ _ninety seven percent,_ _perhaps. You can never really be sure who’s Dimir these days._ ” Judith had conceded. “ _Point is, there won’t be anybody there who’s so Azorius they’d recognise you, and if somehow there is- well, they won’t be saying anything, will they? They’ve the same secret to keep._ _Now, do you have any allergies?_ ”

So it was that a week later, Lavinia found herself in the warm, plush club environs, waiting with bated breath for the next instruction from her mistress.

“I showed Zavaris a list of dishes I want brought here.” Judith purred. “When they arrive, we’re going to play a game. I’m going to put some things in your mouth, My Pet, and you shall have to figure out what they are, because I want you to do what’s appropriate with them. If you drop food before you like a child or spit out your drink, well…” Lavinia could hear the wide, toothy smile in the dame’s voice. “Then you would be embarrassing me in public, and I think I would have to punish you. Back home, perhaps, or maybe, if you’re especially bad, here in the club, in front of everybody. Do you understand?”

Lavinia bit her lip. As an arrester she had a deep well of composure she could tap into under pressure, it was how she stayed cool and collected on the streets when dealing with guildless criminals; but the notion of the people sitting around this room, the sources of the mumblings and clattering of cutlery she could hear all about her, witnessing her being taken over the diva’s knee and soundly spanked… it almost made her consider some light _civil disobedience_. For the moment, though, she decided she’d be most comfortable complying with Judith’s instructions. Old habits died hard, and there was very little in her career that had ever given her to contemplate deliberate rulebreaking. Well… not yet, anyway. She had strong doubts about her ability to stomach following any decrees that planeswalker snake Dovin Baan might make, should he eventually end up in Azorius authority.

“Yes, my diva.” She breathed.

“Excellent.” Judith said. “Now then, it will take a little while for the food to get here, so in the meantime I have something else to occupy you.” Her voice was closer and to Lavinia’s right; she must have stood up.

Lavinia felt hands on her face, and then something smooth and leathery drawing past her cheeks. She felt something hard and round clack against her front teeth, and slowly, nervously opened her mouth to accommodate it. As she did, the object forced itself inside her mouth, uncomfortably keeping it open as she felt the hands tightening a strap on the back of her head.

“There now, that should keep you occupied and quiet until the food gets here.” Judith said, in a satisfied tone. “Not too tight, I hope?”

Lavinia shook her head. The ballgag was uncomfortable, but somehow that discomfort- and the notion of being used as a _thing_ that had to be silenced- excited her.

“Very good.” Judith’s voice was retreating back to its position across the table. “Now we shall wait.”

The room around Lavinia was loud and oppressive, and forced to wait she became keenly aware of every detail of her condition. The cowl was hot, and its interior was, by this time, coated in a thin film of sweat. Her jaw throbbed from the ballgag within it, and the shackles beneath the table pressed gently onto her wrists in a way that she was becoming super-sensitive to.

After what seemed an age, she finally heard the dame’s voice again.

“The food is here, My Pet.” She felt the hands at her cheeks again, and a moment later she was once again free of the gag.

“Get ready.” Judith was very close now. “Here comes the skyjek!”

Something hot and wet entered Lavinia’s mouth. She ran her tongue around it, tasting the sudden tang of a sweet and sour sauce. Satisfied that this was in fact food, she bit down on it gently, tasting some sort of salty poultry. It was delicious, and far outside the kind of sustenance she would usually have access to at work.

“Well done, My Pet.” Judith crooned as Lavinia swallowed. “Now, how about this?”

Once again Lavinia felt something at her lips. This time it was thin and hard and metallic. She frowned a moment, then slipped it into her mouth over her bottom teeth, leaving her tongue free.

The liquid that poured into her mouth was undoubtedly wine. How expensive, Lavinia didn’t know, she’d never had a nose for the stuff, but it wasn’t unpleasant. She tried to sip it reservedly, but drinking with any sort of dignity seemed out of the question. With only the feeling of the brim on her lips, visualising the orientation of the cup or goblet or whatever it was was almost impossible, and it was all she could do to make sure she at least didn’t choke or spill any.

“Oh excellent! You’re a natural!” Judith squealed happily from about a foot away. “Now, this is a hard one, so take your time.”

There was silence for a moment before Lavinia felt Judith’s hand on her arm, and then something soft touched her lips. She couldn’t place it. What was this? She made to open her mouth, but the thing stayed touching her lips, seemingly getting larger as she did, so she closed it again.

The thing changed orientation a little and Lavinia became vaguely aware that it was moist and warm as well as soft. She puckered her lips and felt pressure as the thing pressed against them. It was only when something else brushed against her cheek as she yielded to the pressure that she realised what this was, and what was happening.

She was being kissed.

Lavinia’s heart instantly began beating faster, and the hood became more drenched in sweat as her cheeks burned red. The lips on hers were soft, but not gentle. This was a passionate kiss, a warm, loving kiss quite unlike the quick affectionate pecks she had been shown by Judith before. It was also long- everything felt longer in her sensorially deprived state but this kiss must have already taken a good twenty seconds and showed no sign of slowing down.

But none of that was what frightened Lavinia about the kiss. What she couldn’t deal with was how _real_ it felt.

She began rattling the shackles binding her wrists and wriggling in her chair. The other lips left hers, and Judith’s voice, inches from her face, confirmed her fear.

“Is everything all right, My Pet?”

“Niv-Mizzet” Lavinia managed to eke out the name, shaking all over with a mixture of terror and rage. “Niv-Mizzet Niv-Mizzet NIV-MIZZET!” She felt breathless and her heart was pounding. The night had taken a sudden very sour turn and she needed out.

“Ok.” Judith’s voice instantly lost its performative croon and became deathly serious. “It’s ok. I’m here. I’m unlocking you from the table. I can’t take the cowl off without us going outside, or people will recognise you. Do you need to go outside?”

Shaking, Lavinia could only nod her head. She felt her wrists being released from the shackles and instantly, clumsily stood up out of the booth.

“Cloak.” She said, simply. She wasn’t sure if she meant it as a request, a command or a demand at this point.

“Here.” She felt Judith put the warm thick cloak over her shoulders and grabbed its edges, pulling them across her exposed torso and legs.

“Out.” She barked again.

“If Madam wishes to leave prematurely without paying the bill up front, there will be an additional-” the simpering ghostly voice came from somewhere behind and to the right of her.

“Oh fuck off Zavaris, I’ll pay the surcharge tomorrow if we end up leaving. You know where I live.” Judith hissed in reply from Lavinia’s direct left. She felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Where’s the step?” She asked, in a thin voice.

“Straight in front of you darling, big step now will take you down it.” Judith replied.

“Good. Stop touching me.” Lavinia said, acidly, and stepped forward into space, praying she wouldn’t turn her ankle on these unfamiliar heels. She managed to catch herself with just a small stumble, and turned left and right, hand out to touch the wall. Behind her she could hear Judith making apologies- or perhaps threats- to the wait staff. She turned left and stumbled forward, feeling the wall beside her until it wasn’t there any more. She followed it around the corner, and kept walking, hand over hand on the brickwork beside her until it turned another corner again. She heard heels clacking on the cobbles behind her.

“There’s some privacy here.” Judith’s voice, solemn and soft, came from directly behind her. “Nobody can see us, so if you need to take the cowl off you can.”

Lavinia grabbed at the contraption on her head and pulled roughly, sliding her upper face out to freedom with a sharp tug. Finally she could see again. This was some sort of alleyway behind the club, though evidently it wasn’t where the bins were emptied. There was nothing here but a small door Lavinia presumed served as a performers’ entrance. She turned to look behind her.

Judith was standing before her, white with shock and concern. Lavinia had got dressed before Judith, so this was her first time seeing the dame’s outfit. Judith was clad head to toe in black leather; the only splash of colour came in her red earrings, each the shape of the insignia of the Rakdos cult, and the inlay of the intricate spiked pattern on her fashionable handbag’s flap. She wore nothing at all on her head; a rarity that exposed her neat black bob of hair.

All of this was lost on Lavinia as, free as she finally was, her fear and anger bubbled up to come to a head in her throat.

“What the _FUCK_ was that, Judith?” She growled.

“I...” Judith took a step backwards. “I think I’ve crossed a boundary here, so let’s just calm down and talk about-”

“No, Judith.” Lavinia took a step forward. “What. In Azor’s name. Was that.”

Judith was struggling to meet her gaze. “I don’t… I’m not… you’re angry with me.”

Possessed with rage, Lavinia strode forward. In a flash, reflexively, her hands moved in the air, drawing the casting loops for an interrogator’s charm, before she grabbed roughly onto Judith’s wrist.

“WHAT. WAS. THAT.”

Judith didn’t speak, she just stared down at Lavinia’s clenched grip and at the cream and blue line of sigils slowly rotating around her wrist and Lavinia’s like a cartoonish suggestion of handcuffs, preventing her from lying. When she looked back up into Lavinia’s eyes her own had tears welling at their corners.

In that moment, the illusion of submission was broken. Lavinia looked at Judith and rather than seeing her mistress, or her good friend, or the powerful and glamorous Grand Dame, she saw her for what she was; a small, frightened circus clown, utterly powerless against the actual strength that surged through Lavinia’s being, invested in her by Azorius law, compelling poor frightened Judith to shut up or put up the truth.

Lavinia was instantly horrified. She released Judith’s hand and waved her own to dismiss the charm and free Judith’s mind. Haunted by the dame’s horrified, betrayed expression she took a couple of steps back, almost tripping over the cobbles in her heels.

“I’m sorry.” She breathed, her voice cracking. “I didn’t… I wouldn’t...”

Judith’s mouth wobbled and Lavinia could see her makeup running as tears trickled down her cheeks. She kept eye contact for a moment, and then opened her bag, scrabbled in it and threw something black and woollen into Lavinia’s pelvis.

Lavinia felt a tear roll down her own cheek as she bent down and picked up the object. Turning it over in her hands she recognised a simple black balaclava.

“To hide your face.” Judith said, almost imperceptibly. “In a way where you can see. On the way home.”

Lavinia looked up, her face in a haunted expression. “Thank you...” she breathed.

“I’ll have your clothes sent round tomorrow.” Judith said in a drained voice. “But I think perhaps we should put our sessions on hold for the moment.”

“Okay.” Lavinia felt very small. “I’ll… put this on and go then. I’ll send this stuff back with whoever you send with the clothes.” She gestured at herself.

“Sounds good.” Judith had turned away. Lavinia caught the slightest tilt of her head, and for a moment she thought she could see the dame’s eye, red and puffy. But then Judith was walking away, and she disappeared round the corner.

Lavinia looked down at her hands. The cowl in one, the balaclava in the other. Suddenly she became aware of how cold she felt, alone in an alley behind an Orzhov dinner club, wearing just a harness and collar beneath her cloak. Screwing up her eyes to suppress her tears, she pulled on the balaclava and pulled the cloak tight around her as she prepared to walk on home.

It was very late when Lavinia finally got home. As soon as the door was shut and locked she tore off the balaclava and collapsed into a sitting position against the wall. In the dark and the silence, she sat, trying to wipe away tears with the heel of her hand.

“Rough day, Lavinia?” A familiar voice beside her asked.

Lavinia jumped and snapped her head to the left. A familiar figure clad in trimmed blue robes sat with his back against the wall, looking at her kindly. Lavinia recoiled in confusion and horror.

“Guildpact!” She cried, scrabbling to cover her dignity with the cloak. “I...er...you…!” She stopped, took a moment to centre herself, and tried a different line. “What are you are doing in my home? You have your own, and I visit it for extended periods every day.”

“I’m not in your home, Lavinia.” said Jace Beleren. “Or rather, I suppose I am, but Jace Beleren the living Guildpact is not in your home. I’m a figment of your imagination, you see, rather than the real thing. I thought that was important to get out on the table ahead of time, make sure we’re both on the same page.”

 _Just like the real guildpact would._ “Very well...” Lavinia replied, suspiciously. “And why exactly am I imagining you, apparently at least partially against my will, sitting against the wall of my apartment?”

“Well that is the question, isn’t it?” Beleren said thoughtfully. “Truthfully I’m not sure, which I suppose means you’re not sure, but since I do seem to be something on the level of a trauma-induced hallucination, or at least something approaching one, I suppose whatever the reason is is likely quite serious and worth figuring out.

“Speaking of my home, by the way.” He continued. “The real Jace is, as you know, just as capable of reading your mind as I am, and as such I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you that if you don’t take steps to bury the memory the first thing he’s going to know when he sees you after he comes back is that you ate Judith out on your desk in there.”

“Ha!” Lavinia gave a hollow laugh. “That shouldn’t be difficult. I really don’t want to talk or think about Judith right now.”

“Yes you do.” Jace said, matter-of-factly. “Of that much I’m certain. You desperately want to talk about Judith to someone, at least subconsciously, and it’s important that you do because it has something to do with why I’m Jace Beleren.”

“Why you’re…?” Lavinia was confused.

Jace frowned. “Why _I specifically_ , as a figment of your imagination, am Jace Beleren and not somebody else, that is. As to why the genuine article is Jace Beleren I feel that’s really a personal project for him to work on on his own time, and none of our concern.” He raised his eyebrows at Lavinia, who covered a small smile.

“So you want me to talk about Judith.” She said. “Surely the real Beleren would just know everything there is to tell, reading it out of my mind as easily as from a book.”

“He would.” Jace said simply. “As can I, being a part of the mind in question. But both of us would find it incredibly rude and a betrayal of trust to mention so, or use the knowledge in a strictly social context. Besides, the purpose of the exercise is to help you retread what you know, in the hope that new enlightenment can be achieved. I don’t have the benefit of being a fully realised person of my own, so I only know what you know. So I want to hear it from you, but also for you to hear it again, so you can figure things out.”

“Need I explain everything?” Lavinia asked. “Were you the real guildpact I likely would, but I feel like for introspective purposes that might result in a lot of wasted time.”

“Why don’t you assume that I know all about what you’ve been doing with Judith and why, up until you got upset in the dinner club.” Jace relented. “And, I might add, that until you see evidence to the contrary the real Jace does not. Start from there. What did she do that upset you?”

“She kissed me.” Lavinia hunched inwards, pulling the cloak around her legs like a child.

“She’s kissed you before. It made you blush a little but you didn’t have a problem with it. What’s changed?”

“She kissed me on the mouth.”

“She’s done that before as well.”

“Not like this. It’s always been part of the game, or if it was affectionate it was… familial. Like a kiss from an aunt.”

“And this wasn’t like that?” Jace extended a leg to more comfortably lean on the wall.

“No. This was...” Lavinia furrowed her brow. “Damn it. I can’t call it _passionate_ , really, because we both put a lot of passion into the things we do in sessions. This wasn’t like that. She was kissing me like… like…”

Jace raised his eyebrows. “Like?”

“Like she meant it.” Lavinia said, sheepishly staring at her hands.

“I see.” Jace said thoughtfully. “And how did you feel about her meaning it?”

“This is silly.” Lavinia said, grumpily. “You aren’t even real, and you’ve taken the form of somebody I’d never tell any of this.”

“Lavinia.” Jace’s voice was stern. “How did that make you feel?”

Lavinia was quiet for a moment. She swallowed, and took a moment to choose her words.

“It made me afraid, and angry.”

“Why did it make you feel that way?”

Lavinia didn’t say anything.

“What were you afraid of, Lavinia?” Jace pressed.

Lavinia fidgeted and looked away.

“ _Lavinia._ ” Jace appeared out of the air in front of her, still sitting down but now with a hand on her shoulder. “Were you afraid of liking it?”

Lavinia screwed up her face and nodded.

Jace sighed. “All right. So Judith did something romantic with you and that made you upset and angry because you feared having reciprocal feelings for her. And this is separate from the arrangement that you already have where you frequently have sex with her and engage in nothing but adoring her for two hours every week.”

“You make it sound foolish.” Lavinia grumbled.

“I make it sound that way because you think it _is_ foolish.” Jace said. “But you assaulted her over it so it can’t have really been like that.”

“I didn’t _assault_ her.” Lavinia wailed. “She wasn’t hurt and it was perfectly legal for me to do that as an arrester!”

“That may be true.” Jace was angrily raising his voice. “But as I have to keep reminding you, I exist only in your mind! If I called it assault when it wasn’t it’s because it was an abuse of your power that you are experiencing guilt over!”

Lavinia seethed quietly, glaring at the phantasm. “All right, yes! I regret it terribly! I bound her with an interrogation charm while off-duty because I was angry enough that I wanted a different answer to the one I knew I would get to my question, the one giving which was her only option other than keeping quiet while I had her wrist in my hand! I compelled a truthful answer to a question I didn’t want to hear one to, and perhaps that is legal for me to do as an arrester but in practice it’s a vile, petty, brutish and fundamentally _childish_ abuse of my authority that served no good end!”

“So you’re upset that you needlessly hurt Judith?” Jace asked, bemused. “And why would that be exactly, if you were so enraged by her behaviour and hated her so much at this point?”

“Stop it!” Lavinia yelled. “I know what you’re doing and I want you to stop! I can’t feel that way about her! What we had was a business arrangement! It involved intimacy as a matter of course but ultimately it was a contractual relationship where we exchanged services! It’s not wrong or strange for two people who work together to be good friends, but that’s all we were… all we could ever be!”

“Why not?!” Jace yelled back into her face. “What’s stopping you from pursuing those feelings? Why _can’t_ you let yourself feel that way about her?”

“BECAUSE SHE’S RAKDOS AND THE RAKDOS KILLED MY BROTHER!” Lavinia yelled back, tears misting her eyes.

Jace blinked, and slumped back down against the wall.

“There we go.” He sighed. “I think we made some progress.”

“You do?” Lavinia murmured.

“I think so. I mean, I think I have a better idea why I’m Beleren, at least.”

“Want to share?” Lavinia asked, sardonically.

“Quite simple really.” He smiled at her. “He’s the guildpact.”

“...I’m not following you.”

“Yes you are.” He waggled a finger at her. “You just don’t want to admit it because you feel guilty.”

“Oh? Then tell me, oh almighty brain of mine made infuriating robed flesh, what don’t I want to admit? I’ve done one, now it’s your turn.”

“Subconsciously-” Jace stood up and make a token gesture of extending his hand to help Lavinia up while staring a little apologetically at her. She stood up under her own power, no longer bothering to keep the cloak covering herself completely. “Subconsciously you want to speak to the real guildpact. He’s the embodiment of inter-guild unity. If you could bear to tell him all this- which you wouldn’t, but perhaps you could approach the problem some other way- well, he has all the powers of the guildpact, doesn’t he? If anybody can say it’s all right for you to have a snog with the Scourge Diva, it’s him.”

“That doesn’t sound very convincing at all.” Lavinia chided.

“If I’m honest I think I might be more of an instinctive impulse than a fully formed plan of action.” Jace retorted. “You like Judith. You like what you do with her, and you want to be able to reciprocate her feelings for you in a way she can understand, but you’re wracked with guilt when you think about it because you feel guilty cosying up to members of the Rakdos cult. Or, I presume, House Dimir, but I don’t know if they necessary enter the picture at this point. You’ve imagined me because you want Jace Beleren, the living guildpact, to… wave his magic wand of guild cooperation? Or something? Sign a law that makes it ok for you to go out with Judith without sullying your brother’s memory? I don’t know that you’ve really thought me through, to be honest.”

“It doesn’t seem so.” Lavinia muttered. “But then what should I do?”

“Honestly, Lavinia, I’m a facet of your own brain, projected into the form of a man with such little sense of sensible relationship policy he once willingly pursued a dalliance with Countess Liliana Vess.” Jace said, thinly. “I don’t know that you could have chosen a worse person to ask. But if you want what little advice I can give you; regardless of how you push forward from here, Judith deserves a proper apology for what you did to her tonight. If not for her benefit, then for yours. I suggest you write it down and send it back with whoever comes with your clothes in the morning.

“Second of all, I think this is honestly something you have to solve for yourself, without help, because even if he does come back soon, you can’t get the real Jace to assist you without revealing entirely too much about your Raksday night activities. Either you can move past your reservations, in which case I think you should; Judith’s attractive, accomplished, and you already have an existing relationship which could be built on. Or you can’t, in which case it’s probably best to leave her alone and pursue a different outlet for your problems with me. Er, the real me, that is.”

“But how do I know how I feel?” Lavinia wailed.

“That I can’t tell you.” Jace replied sympathetically. “Your brother’s killers were individuals, acting of their own volition and spread across two guilds. You could argue that since Judith wasn’t one of them her hands are clean of the matter, especially now that new guild cooperation is embodied in Jace Beleren the living guildpact. One the other hand… well, there was a guildpact back then, too, and the behaviours of those Rakdos could hardly be said to be uncharacteristic of the guild. Maybe Judith really is just more of the same. It’s up to you, really, Lavinia. I can help you no more. Goodbye.” He smiled, apologetically, and then as quickly as he had come, he was gone.

Lavinia steadied herself on her kitchen unit, her head reeling, and stayed there for about two minutes, not saying a word. Then, she purposefully picked herself up, walked into her study to her writing desk to retrieve paper and ink (there to be left upon the desk itself so as not to be forgotten) and retreated to her bedroom to relieve herself of the uncomfortable chafing harness.

An hour or so later, the letter written and placed neatly on top of the folded pile that included the cloak, harness and both pieces of headwear the dame had lent her, Lavinia knew what she was going to do. What she had to do, to heal the wounds in her heart and try to make things right.

What she had to do to have a hope of seeing Judith again.


	4. Saved From The Heartward Knife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At a Rakdos performance, Judith spots a familiar face in the audience, and receives a solemn visitor at her dressing room door later on. Hearts are bared, and truth is magically exhorted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some sexless fluff this chapter, but important plot movements nonetheless. The fifth and final one should be quicker coming now that I'm back in the saddle and Django Wexler's story is out, but no promises, especially since there's a different drabble I want to do first.

“Thank you all for coming tonight, good people of Ravnica!” Judith spread her arms wide and smiled a glittering smile. “We have time remaining for one more act only, but it is our _showstopper_.” She sat down on a table on the raised stage beneath a large wooden arch; suspended from which via one taught rope and two slack ones was a large, nasty looking knife pointed straight down towards her. At each side of the stage a large, nasty looking devil stood, each one connected via the shirtless waist to one of those slackened ropes.

“We’ve become very close over the course of this evening, all of you and I.” Judith crooned to the enraptured audience. “And yet is has been difficult to ignore your lust for blood, scandal and carnage underlying the relationship. Now I find myself in mortal peril, only to survive by virtue of your faith and adulation.

“In a moment I shall cut this rope.” She indicated beside her. “And that blade shall plunge toward my unprotected breast. At the same time these gentlemen shall leap off the sides of the stage, seeking to tighten these ropes and pull the knife back again, saving me. But can they do it? That is where all of you come in. Flatfoot, Featherweight?”

The two devils stepped toward to the forefront of the stage, where there stood a large box of eggs.

“Mr Flatfoot and Mr Featherweight here have a rather… unique ability.” Judith continued. “Though their appearance always stays the same, how much they weigh is directly proportional to the noisiness of their surroundings. They shall now demonstrate. I will ask you all to remain quiet for the moment while they step onto the eggs, then starting from THIS side-” She gesticulated to her left. “If you could all make as much noise as you can, whooping, hollering, clapping, anything you see fit to make a din. For the rest of you, once you cannot hear yourself think over your right hand neighbour, take up noisemaking of your own, and so on. Stand up while you’re doing it, and we’ll see how many of you have stood up when the eggs finally crack.”

Flatfoot and Featherweight stepped onto the eggs, the feeble shells surprisingly supporting their human-sized frames handily, and gestured to the crowd. One by one the rows of fans got to their feet clapping and yelling, and by the time ten of them had done so, Featherweight’s eggs had cracked beneath his feet, and Flatfoot’s were soon to follow. The demonstration finished, the two devils returned to their posts and leaned back over the edge, ready to drop.

“I’m ready to cut!” Judith sang. “And if you’ve come to love me, my public, you will clap and cheer, so that my gentleman friends fall fast enough that the knife is yanked away ere it pierces my chest. BEGIN!” Picking up a curved knife that lay beside her on the table, Judith slashed the rope free and flattened herself against the boards. As the devils leapt the crowd erupted into thunderous applause and cheers, and the knife dipped down to an inch above Judith’s chest before it was yanked back up to the top of the arch, pressed against the beam by the weight of the two stolid devils.

The applause and adulation continued, and as Judith sat up surveying the crowd, her eye was drawn irresistibly to what she realised was an all-too-familiar face within, shrouded beneath a bright blue hood that stood out amongst the sea of darker clothing.

~~~

There was a knock at Judith’s dressing room door. Dressed only in a scarlet dressing gown, she might have been loath to answer it had the cadence of the knock not betrayed the identity of its owner.

Pulling open the door revealed Lavinia’s sullen face, framed by the bright blue hood she had worn in the audience. Judith looked her up and down with a frown, unsure of what kind of tack to take.

“You know it’s fake, don’t you?” She joked with a slight smile. “The stunt. I was never in any real danger.”

“Of course you weren’t.” Lavinia murmured, her upper face not moving at all. “Objects of the same shape and volume fall at the same speed. As long as at their lightest Featherweight and Flatfoot together outweigh the knife, you’d always be saved.”

“Clever girl.” Judith leaned on the doorframe and sighed. Neither woman spoke for a moment.

“I got your letter.” Judith whispered, a little mournful. “Would you like to come in?”

“If that’s all right.”

“I don’t know if any of it’s all right, Vinny, but I’d like to talk about it in private.”

Lavinia followed her into the room and sat down at her direction. Judith took a seat in the big armchair and stared at her with pursed lips. There was an uncomfortable silence.

“I’m sorry.” Lavinia said. Judith had expected the arrester to be avoiding her gaze, but when she looked, the deep brown eyes she had secretly cherished so long were locked with hers. “What I did was… wrong. And cruel. You didn’t deserve that.”

“I’m sorry too.” Judith replied, holding up her hand as Lavinia made to object. “You hurt me a lot, and you’re responsible for it. But it happened because of me. You were in a vulnerable position and obliged to trust me, and I took advantage of that to introduce something outside our agreement for my own selfish ends. It was wrong, and I regret it.”

Lavinia looked like she was about to argue for a moment, but she turned away. “That doesn’t give me the right to behave how I did. It was silly to imagine given what we were doing this wouldn’t come up. I should have asserted my boundaries better.”

“It would have helped, but I think perhaps you asserted them as best you could have done, at the time. There’s obviously a deep hurt involved here.” Judith said. She stayed silent for a moment before continuing. “I didn’t kill your brother, Lavinia, and I don’t know any of the people who did.” It was a difficult sentence that put the grand dame’s heart in her throat.

“I know.”

“But that doesn’t change things, does it?”

“It should.”

“Yes.” Judith’s tone was suddenly terse. “It _should_. And if it won’t, in the end, I don’t know that we have much more to say to one another. But trauma in particular needs time and effort. I’m willing to help you with both.”

“Why?” Lavinia looked up with hollow eyes. “Why would you help me at all after what I did?”

Judith pursed her lips and didn’t answer for approaching a minute. Then she tapped her wrists together and held them out. “Bind me.”

“I...” Lavinia recoiled in fear and confusion, almost tipping her chair over. “Wha...”

“Bind me. Cast the charm again. You have my permission this time. I want you to have no doubt that I’m telling you the truth.”

Lavinia leaned forward and tentatively took hold of Judith’s outstretched wrists, and looked at her with deep uncertainty in her eyes.

“Do it.” The grand dame instructed, a slight hint of the tone she used to instruct the pet garnishing her voice. “Bind me with your truth magicks, Arrester, and ask your question again.”

Slowly and carefully, though she’d surely done it thousands of times, Lavinia drew the sigils for an interrogator’s truth charm in a weave around Judith’s hands, where they rotated slowly in a glowing loop.

“Why would you help me after what I’ve done to you, Judith?”

Judith leaned forward over the loop holding her hands tight, her face inches from Lavinia’s.

“Because I love you, Lavinia of the Tenth.”

Lavinia hadn’t the time to gasp or speak before Judith’s lips met hers. Judith felt her relax and, after a moment, reciprocate the kiss, her manner less certain and more repressed than Judith’s, but nonetheless passionate and genuine. As their mouths parted, Judith felt Lavinia’s hand on her upper arm, a gentle request for her to lean back. Judith smiled, and complied just a little, enough to see Lavinia’s whole face as the arrester reached down and tugged the loop of sigiled light off her wrists, winding it around her own left hand and pulling it tight.

“I love you too.” Lavinia said, her voice cracking. “And it frightens me so much.”

“Oh darling.” Judith smiled kindly as she leaned back in her chair. “No doubt, but would you have it any other way?”

From the way Lavinia shivered and blushed even as she cracked a smile, Judith strongly suspected she wouldn’t.


End file.
